


only a fool

by CaptainRivaini



Category: Black Sails
Genre: F/F, Implied Relationships, Unrequited Love, Violence, i hope u like misery kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-28 20:53:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6344731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainRivaini/pseuds/CaptainRivaini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Idelle could charm a man without even having to open her mouth. Even worse, she could make them fall in love with a glance, a mere trick of the light and a radiant smile. </p><p>Yet not Max. She should have known really, known that Max would always be the exception.</p>
            </blockquote>





	only a fool

**Author's Note:**

> max/idelle is canon sorry i don't make the rules.

**I** delle could see a fool in love from a mile away.

It had always been a talent of hers. While other whores could stick their fist up a man’s arse and others could do wicked delights with their tongue Idelle could see when someone had fallen too far to the edge of a cliff. A cliff that had no end once you took a wrong step and fell, down, down into the deep abyss with no hope of resurfacing.

She could see one right now, two steps away from her and writing sloppily in a diary that Idelle herself had sneaked in, right under the Madame’s nose.

The fool saw her looking and gave a sheepish smile. She had arrived on the island a few years back, no mother or father to her name and a sharp look in her eyes. They had kept darting to and from when the harbour master had brought her to the brothel: first on the swords of the pirates that still lounged around in the early morning sun, then the row of pewter mugs stacked in a line on the bar top, being greedily devoured by Naft and then, finally, they had landed on her.

Idelle could remember how resentment had caused her to look away with a scoff. The fool had been the most beautiful girl she had ever seen and she had known then that she would become an instant favourite among the locals of Nassau.

The fool had followed her around for the first couple of months, much like a lost puppy. To Idelle it would have been wrong to describe the fool as a dog for the fool did not have the temperament of one. She was not mean, nor did she smell and she didn’t bare her teeth at all. She instead only asked questions – some that made Idelle roll her eyes while others left her feeling as though she had been punched in the gut.

“Did you know your father?” The fool had asked on the twenty-ninth night they had slept together in the small storage room where six others lay, pressed together like puppies. “I knew mine.”

“Lucky for you,” Idelle had replied, digging her face into Charlotte’s shoulder while her hand was pressed to the curve of the fool’s back. The fool made her feel like a needle was being pricked all over her brain whenever she talked but the fool was also warmth and so sacrifices, back then, were easily made.

“I wish I didn’t.”

Idelle could still remember what she had felt back then. The needles had removed themselves, one by one, from her head and had moved until they were level with her heart before they had readied themselves and thrust inside. She had thought the island would rid her of such feelings; those treacherous emotions that made her blink back tears and bite down on her tongue.

“Just go to sleep,” she had said to the fool. She had squeezed her hand too, that, Idelle could recall clearly.

She was startled from her thoughts by the fool slamming her diary closed. She sent her an impish look that made Idelle sit up straighter in the chair she was lounging in, interest piqued despite knowing very well what lay on the other side of the question that begged to lift itself from her tongue.

The fool drew the diary close to her chest. “Madame gave me a new assignment today.”

Idelle barely managed to contain herself from snorting. “So? That woman would give you every assignment if she could, she’s going to break your back in two before you know it.”

That drew the fool’s face into a frown that didn’t help Idelle contain her snort any longer. She let it escape as though letting free a bird from its cage, joy at seeing the wrinkled brow of the fool overtaking the more sensitive side until it was too late to school her features.

“Very funny Idelle. I’m pleased to know you would miss me terribly if such a thing was to happen.” The fool grumbled, moving from the small desk in the room they shared to sit beside her with a graceless thump against the sofa’s solid back. Her grumbling, however, didn’t last long before she had taken Idelle’s hand in her own and squeezed, a painful reminder at how true the fool’s words actually were. “Now be serious and listen to me. Something happened today, something I didn’t think would happen and you must promise, promise! –“ The fool placed a finger on her lips to silence the outburst that must have been so obviously bubbling to move past her lips, “that you must tell nobody of this.”

Idelle’s response was to roll her head back and sigh with such obvious exaggeration it made her heart miss a beat when she heard the fool’s breath hitch with a laugh.

“Promise me Idelle!” Still, the fool persisted. She was lucky she was cute.

“ _Christ almighty_ I promise already, alright?” Idelle mocked with a smile that made the fool’s grow wider with childish delight. It held so many promises that Idelle knew she never wanted to break, and yet…

The fool embraced her in a hug that if it had been any other Idelle would have thrown them off of her. Just as there was a game outside of the brothel between the elite, the brothel had its own rules to follow. Not set in stone, but everyone knew it.

The first Idelle had broken already: becoming close with your fellow whores never ended well. She had seen girls die for it, betrayed and left behind. But the fool had been her age when she had arrived and she had been scared and lonely and so beautiful, what else could have happened but for Nassau to press them together, despite everything?

The fool pressed her lips against her ear, secretive as ever, and whispered: “The Guthrie woman. I took the Guthrie woman by the hand and I kissed her and _kissed_ her. We fucked and she tried to pay me and I…I said no. Idelle, I said _no._ ”

Idelle’s eyes widened and instinctively she moved from the embrace, grabbing at her companion’s thin shoulders and shaking her. “Max, are you _fucking_ serious?” She ignored how the smaller woman seemed to tense in her grasp, mind racing to a far more alarming place. “Max tell me you’re just fucking with me here.”

Max did nothing of the sort. She only moved slowly away, lips pulled into a pout and her dark eyes full of frustration that grabbed Idelle by the chest.

“I thought you would understand.” Max said quietly. From the look on Max’s face it felt like she had just told Max every bad thing people thought of her. It was enough to make Idelle close her eyes and rest her forehead in the palm of her hand, sighing even louder than before when Max continued to speak. “Eleanor-“

“It doesn’t matter what you call her, Max,” Idelle snapped, shaking her head fiercely at the utter irrationality that dripped from Max’s lips. “She’s still the Guthrie woman and if Noonan even thought for a second, one _fucking_ second that she was taking from him without you being paid she would be fucked. Shit, Max, this isn’t done. Not even _Charlotte_ lets Logan have a free fuck.”

Idelle knew from the moment Max pulled away from her and moved back to the small writing desk that her words had struck something inside of her. It had not been what she had wanted, to see Max so stricken when previously her enrapture in her secret had been so appealing, but there were always lessons to be taught when living the life of a whore.

Max knew those lessons off by heart. Idelle knew she did, had even been the one to teach her when the sands of time continued to spill. Max _knew_ and she had still refused.

She got up from where she had been lounging and took a few hesitant steps forward until she could reach out to touch Max’s hand. The one pressed angrily into a fist on top of the desk.

“You can probably get away with it the first time,” she said, her fingers moving soothingly over Max’s. “Just make her pay from now on. That way Noonan won’t hurt either of you and you’ll still get to…”

“No,” Max interrupted her as quickly as a whip, her words smacking her to a standstill that made the skin of Idelle’s cheeks crawl with an unpleasant sensation. “No, I will not.”

Idelle withdrew her hand from Max’s to tug on her shoulder, twisting her around until they were face-to-face. It turned out not to be the most clever of moves on her part, especially at seeing the injured way Max’s face had taken form with her watery brown eyes and quivering cheeks, but Idelle knew this was for her own good. Whatever Max and the Guthrie woman were, no matter how much it felt like someone had placed a blade in her mouth and asked her to smile whenever she caught sight of the two of them, Idelle would not let Max face punishment just because of Guthrie’s misleading intentions.

“Don’t be an idiot. You know Noonan would find out, you know he would…”

“I am not afraid, Idelle,” Max said with a tight a smile that looked ready to break with anger so apparent in each twitch of her cheek. “I know what I’m doing. He won’t find out, I’ll make sure of it.”

“Max...”

“I don’t want to speak about it anymore.”

Idelle went to argue but stopped when she saw how dark Max’s eyes had become when they landed on her. It was not fiery any longer but a stillness, a calm, that made Idelle sigh and move away from her friend until the distance between them, only a few feet, felt like miles.

It was relief that filled her when she heard Mapleton call up for her from downstairs, requesting her presence immediately.

She met Max’s eyes again and felt her heart quiver like a delicately plucked string when she saw her visibly swallow and peer down at her feet.

“Please,” Max whispered. “Please don’t tell her.”

This time it was Idelle who swallowed, swallowed back the tears and her fear and every little voice of doubt that told her that keeping this secret would be the ruin of her. If it had any been other girl, any other whore in this place.

But it was Max.

Idelle knew how much that changed everything.

 

* * *

 

  **E** ventually Idelle got her own room away from Max – the perks of suddenly being in high demand, she guessed. Max had been overjoyed though she had tried not to show it, but it had been too late, Idelle could see the lines of joy ingrained deeply in her mouth. With Idelle gone she could sneak in Guthrie whenever she wanted and there would be nobody to risk in telling Noonan and Mapleton.

She could see why Max was happy over it and yet all it did was fill Idelle with the urge to crush things. It didn’t matter what it was. Paper, dough, sheets, hands. Even Featherstone, the man who fancied himself in love with her, started to notice.

“Was I bad?” He was always bad but he was also one of the nicer men that she took to her bed and Idelle could never fault that quality.

“No,” she said and allowed him to take her hand and press it to his lips. He didn’t deserve this, her mind on Max while she was with him, but it was all she could think about. Her and Guthrie and the threat of Noonan lingering over them, over Max – it all made her throat clench as though a hand was wrapped around her throat.

She eased a hand over Featherstone’s and squeezed, preparing him for the worst. “You need to leave now.”

He glanced at her with wide eyes, clearly not expecting her abruptness. “Pardon? Idelle, if I’ve done something to, to…I don’t know! Offend you! Then please tell me so I can do my best,” he took her by the hand and Christ did Idelle hate him for making her so weak, for softening her until she could do nothing but let him take her hand, melding his fingers against hers, “to make it right.”

Idelle searched herself for the repulsion she always felt after whoring. It was the only thing she could latch onto to get her away from him and to fight this weakness that had contaminated her heart, her very bloodstream.

“Augustus…” She said as she moved her hands away, letting them fall into her lap. “Get the fuck out.”

When he did leave, his gold cold on her bare lap, Idelle threw it at the wall and watched as it littered to the floor like golden pebbles.

There were some things money simply couldn’t buy.

She wondered if Max knew that, she wondered if that’s why she refused Guthrie’s money, to comfort herself in a way that Idelle knew she shouldn’t even bother with.

That became even clearer when weeks later after her shift had finally ended Idelle heard the screaming come from Max’s room. The urge to rush in her room, fetch her machete and defend her friend had seized her and then vanished just like smoke when the notes of distress that came from the room next door was Guthrie and then Noonan.

Still Idelle pressed her ear to the wall, ignoring the ache in her chest that spoke volumes she did not wish to hear.

“If you fucking touch her again I’ll-“

“You’ll do what Miss Guthrie? You’ve taken over your father’s business but does he know that with the money you’ve been skimping on the whore you’ll have to take directly from his shares? I think fucking not!”

Idelle closed her eyes and resisted the urge to curse. Fuck. Noonan knew. Noonan _knew_ and Guthrie had said that.. _.Christ_ , fuck. She slid down the wall of her room and let her dress bunch up when she made it to the bottom, her legs collapsing under her. She had warned Max again and again until Max had gotten tired of her mentioning it and it still hadn’t been enough for Max to see sense. It had come to the worst possible thing.

Why hadn’t Guthrie used her own sense, her own wit, which everyone on the island always talked about? Guthrie was so clever, _so_ _intelligent_ but even she had done nothing. She had allowed Max to refuse her pay and damn the consequences and all because of what? _Love?_

“Noonan, fuck, would you put your damn hand down? Look I’ll…I’ll pay for her, and I’ll pay you back. Double the amount, from my own shares.”

“No!”

Idelle felt her heart skip a beat and her body spring into action at Max’s voice. She was alive, oh god she was alive and breathing and her whole body thrummed with that knowledge. It didn’t even matter that Guthrie had caused this mess, it didn’t matter that Max hadn’t listened to her when she had pleaded her to, she was alive and _that_ was all that mattered.

“Shut your fucking mouth, whore! Guthrie, I’m a listenin’…”

The conversation after was short and predictable. It went both like and unlike one of the romance novels that Charlotte had always used to read to them when they were younger. There was the slamming of doors, the rising heat and tension of an argument between lovers and then tears and another slam of the door. And then…

Then Idelle went out on the balcony and waited as she did every night after her shift for Max to come out next to her. It wouldn’t surprise her if she didn’t but in truth Idelle longed to see her, to see the damage and to reach out as best as she could in order to soothe it.

It felt like years had passed when Max eventually walked out into the moonlight to rest her weight on the balcony next to Idelle’s. Her lip was cut, bloodied and bruised. Idelle had known she would feel anger but the warmth, the possessiveness that punched at her gut at seeing Max like this – it both scared and shocked her. It was too much and it felt so…foolish.

“What happened?” Her voice cracked and god, did she hate it. Hate it and Noonan both with a malice that kept her warm in the cool breeze that swept through Nassau like a ghost.

Max shrugged with a smile. That she could smile and shrug and act as though nothing was wrong even after the beating she had received made Idelle ponder, truly ponder, if she was even real. Another character in Charlotte’s novels, too much like sunlight and fairy dust to exist. But Max still stood there, proving her wrong with a small smile and a wince of pain.

“To quote Mr Noonan? Disciplined.” Her smile, if possible, stretched wider with malice. “If you don’t discipline a whore then they will always, _always_ , take advantage.”

Idelle bit her lip, sucked in a breath that made her feel whole and then exhaled until she was light and dizzy enough to curse without fearing consequence. “Fuck Noonan.”

Max let out a soft laugh. “Oui, but not so loud.”

Idelle sucked in a breath and made her way over to the end of her balcony to lean over. “How did he find out? Noonan?”

“I forgot that my shift had started, and he…” Max rubbed a thumb over her lip, eyes watering before they slammed closed, hiding the pain instantly. “He got the information out of me. And Eleanor, she, he…” Max pulled her shawl tighter around herself. “His hands kept shaking. She made him stop.”

She scoffed, couldn’t help herself this time, not even for Max’s sake. “Course she did. Then she paid him.”

Idelle didn’t feel anything close to remorse hit her until she saw how the other woman tilted her head and refused to meet her eyes. It was like looking into a mirror and seeing the irrationality plastered on her own pale face set deep in the youthful cheeks of darker skin and knowing, knowing without a doubt, that the same senselessness embraced the both of them, encased around their hearts.

“She did.” Max said, breaking the silence with a tone so small Idelle almost didn’t hear it. She wished she hadn’t. She didn’t need to know that this was what love was to Max. That a customer not simply paying a fee was what love was and that breaking that unspoken rule was what nulled it completely. But she did and now Idelle had no idea what to do, what to say.

She knew what she _wanted_ to say: _she doesn’t love you, she doesn’t know what love is and neither do you, neither do I but I know, I fucking know that I could try._

Idelle said nothing.

A cold whisper of Nassau’s wind swept past her and she shivered, leaning back from where she had been drawing closer to Max’s balcony to rush to the other side of her own. She felt Max’s eyes on her as she went but refused to falter, wrapping her arms around herself and resting her weight on the door that would lead her inside.

It was the most unsubtle exit and still when Idelle finally worked up the courage to meet Max’s gaze she was rewarded with a smile.

“Am I keeping you up, Idelle?” Max teased and just like that the tension was gone and the ache that Idelle had felt rising up to grip at her heart lessened in its intensity. “If you wish to go, please do not let me keep you. I will be fine by myself out here.” She looked out into the black depths of Nassau where the only light came from the dim lamps that lay scattered through the streets. It was an invitation to leave, Idelle could see that, but something in the way Max’s eyes lingered on Guthrie’s office with such longing made Idelle suspend from her escape.

“Do you remember when we first used to come up here together at night, after our shifts ended?” Idelle asked and hoped, prayed really, that her own yearning was not apparent in her voice. “We weren’t allowed to be seen but no, you, not fucking listening to me again, decided that it would be a good idea…”

“To sneak in here and climb from balcony to balcony,” Max interrupted with a giggle that set off Idelle into unflattering snorts and guffawing under her breath. “We would laugh and race each other and Charlotte, mon dieu, she would get so mad at the both of us. She was younger and still so much more mature!”

“She hated us. We always got her into trouble.”

“You had the chance to tell on me once to Noonan, but you…”

“Didn’t know any better,” Idelle interrupted with a laugh that for the first time in weeks felt genuine when directed at Max. “Thought I was doing us all a favour by taking the brunt for eating the last of Mapleton’s cakes.”

A tug of Max’s lips into a rueful frown took her by surprise. “You ‘ave always protected me.”

Idelle tasted words that she knew would ease Max’s troubles slip over her tongue. It was like playing with the water in your mouth before you spat the remnants of mint and liquid out into your cleaning dish. She knew she would have to spit eventually, to confess, but still Idelle lingered, drawing it out until the silence between them felt more like a knife than companionship.

“Never minded it.” Idelle said. She refused to falter in this, even when she felt so certain she would. “Knew you’d do the same for me.”

She didn’t really. Max had been with her since her arrival and while she had never said anything of the like that would indicate her betrayal, Idelle never wanted the opportunity to arise.

Ignorance was bliss after all.

Though all that was blissful at that moment was Max reaching over from her side of the balcony to grip at the wooden rail of Idelle’s. She shook it to grab her attention and all she could see was the naked truth behind the beautiful brown of Max’s eyes and how her scrutiny brought peace, a peace of mind that Idelle knew was only momentary but welcomed regardless.

“I would,” Max said, shaking the rail again. “I _would_.”

Idelle blinked and found moments later she had crossed the space between them and her hand was placed over Max’s as if it belonged there. A part of her argued that it did, that no matter how much her mind would say otherwise, there was a belonging when it came to being with Max that Idelle had not felt for anyone since she had stepped foot on this fucking island.

And the worst part of it was that Max felt she belonged with someone entirely different. The Guthrie woman, the woman who, whether knowing or not, had lulled Max into a security of a love that Idelle knew from experience would not last even if Max’s affections were returned. Max was a prostitute and Guthrie a privileged woman who could (and in Idelle’s opinion, would) turn on her whenever it suited her and Idelle knew there was nothing she could say to convince Max of this.

Whilst love blinded others to Idelle it only made things clearer and this, the topic of Eleanor Guthrie, would blind Max in the thickest fog imaginable.

Her protection could only go so far and sometimes mistakes were needed to be made for a person’s eyes to truly open but still Idelle hesitated on giving in. Her hand over Max’s felt like an anchor to keep the other woman steady and still it didn’t feel like it was enough. Perhaps it wasn’t, perhaps Guthrie and Max were meant to happen and the bitterness of her own jealousy had left her so jaded that Idelle couldn’t even tell the difference between business and pleasure anymore.

That thought made it easier to finally slide her hand away from Max’s and breathe in deeply. It allowed a moment to pause and then force herself to smile when Max’s hand also departed from its position on the bannister to rest by her side, fingers curled into a fist that made Idelle wonder (blindly and briefly) if it was Max’s way to keep their conversation curled up safely in her palm, where nobody else could intrude.

“It’s late,” Max said and her hands moved to curl together into a hand-hold that Idelle knew after being by Max’s side for so long was a complete foreign gesture from her. “We should sleep. I’m sorry for keeping you up with Noonan and Eleanor…”

“It’s alright, if it wasn’t you that would keep me up it would be Charlotte and her fucking novels, sixth time this week she’s been sneaking in to talk to me about them.” Idelle interrupted with a roll of her eyes that made Max’s light up with humour.

“Ah,” Max said with a mocking solemnity in her voice. “Next time you should invite me to these sessions…Perhaps I will divert Charlotte’s attention and me and you shall make a break for it…” The same impish smile that Idelle had seen many weeks ago returned and filled her up with fondness that made her smile ache at its familiarity, “maybe even through the windows again, oui?”

Idelle leaned back against her double doors to keep her from falling with the sudden laughter that burst from her chest at the proposal. If there was anything she had learned from Max that the other woman knew how to embrace life to the fullest – just another thing that Idelle loved about her, more than Max would possibly ever know.

She pointed an accusatory finger at the woman who she had once known so fondly as the fool. “Used to be so straight for Noonan and Mapleton before you arrived. Bad influence and all, aren’t you?”

Max smirked. “Entirely. I’m not sure how I even managed to get where I am with all the ruckus I’ve caused in the past.”

Idelle knew Max wouldn’t like the truth of that question so instead she merely shrugged. She watched as Max, evidently understanding what her silence meant, sighed and turned to stare up at the dim slit of light that came from the tavern. Her gaze on the building lasted for only a moment but nevertheless Idelle felt the sentiment behind the look had paralyzed her to watch, helpless to respond in any way sufficient enough to help.

Idelle blinked back the tears that had sprung to her eyes at Max’s ease on turning her back on her to look out to Guthrie’s office. There would be no reason to cry, there had never had been and she would be damned if she would break down right here in front of Max after the conversation they had just shared together.

She shook her head and with an angry clenching of her jaw Idelle muttered ‘goodnight’ and slipped inside of her room and slammed the doors shut. The thud did not resonate like she had hoped it would to mask the choked noise that had wormed its way past her lips, but Idelle realized that this moment she truly didn’t care. If there was anything she deserved right now she knew it to be time to herself, to acknowledge the helplessness of her situation and then do her hardest, her damned hardest to move on.

“It’s Max,” she said with a bitter laugh into the cotton of her pillow. She had fallen onto her lumpy bed with the eagerness of a small child and it was with this childishness did she find herself pressing her face into the pillow, willing herself to sleep and ignore the thunderous thoughts that stampeded around her head.

But her thoughts were full of Max and of course Max, Max…

Max had always been different.


End file.
